Human Systems Integration Division @ NASA Ames

During a Space Shuttle mission, astronauts in the cockpit can view any one of dozens of display formats containing vehicle and mission-critical information. During launch, for example, the crew may view a display format showing tank pressures associated with the main engines. During orbit, the crew no longer needs main engine data, and might instead call up a display format containing details of the robotic arm that controls the payload. In the original cockpit, display formats were viewed on four cathode ray tubes (CRTs). In part due to the limitations of the CRTs, the display formats were monochrome and mostly text-based, with almost no graphical content.Currently, the cockpit of each Space Shuttle is being upgraded. A key aspect of the upgrades is the replacement of the four CRTs with 11 color liquid crystal displays (LCDs). The new LCDs have greatly expanded graphics capabilities compared to the CRTs. However, the display formats presented on the LCDs are largely identical copies of the original display formats. Now that the LCDs have been proven in flight to be reliable and effective, NASA is exploiting the expanded color and graphics capabilities of the LCDs to design a new generation of more userfriendly display formats. The proposed formats make systematic and logical use of color. For example, a critical parameter may turn red when the value is off-nominal. In addition, the proposed formats make expanded use of graphics to provide a closer match to the crewmember